Aim: Know the role of the chain reaction in nuclear physics A story starts with two people arguing with each other and ends with a motorcycle crash. Can you link these events together in at least 5 steps, each one related to the last?16 February 2016 My attempt: 2 People arguing, one ends up punching the other, the attacker runs off leaving the injured person on the floor, a passer by calls 999, an air ambulance is despatched, the helicopter flies low to land near to the casualty, a motorcyclist is distracted by the low flying chopper, he looks back at the road and sees a bus pulling out in front of him, he slams on the brakes but goes over the bars but luckily lands in a flowerbed and is left dazed looking at his smashed motorbike, This is an example of a chain of events, each one leading to the next exactly the same sort of process takes place in nuclear reactors and bombs! The worlds largest nuclear bomb was detonated by Russia. It was equivalent to 10 times all the bombs dropped during WW2 - 50,000,000 tons of ordinary explosives. Damage was done 1000km away, the fireball was 8km across, the mushroom cloud rose 7 times higher than mount Everest. All this from a simple chain reaction of a few hundred kilograms of Uranium. BIG BOMB A normal reaction is one where one event causes one more, which causes one more. A bit like a line of dominoes. A chain reaction is one where one event causes 2 more, which cause 4 more, which cause 8 more etc And on and on! RUBE Click here! Nuclear fission is a ______ reaction where neutrons cause atoms to split releasing energy and more ______. These neutrons split even more atoms and so the chain reaction continues until all the atoms have been ______. In a nuclear bomb this whole process happens in microseconds and releases masses of ______. The atoms split into new atoms and these are called daughter nuclei. Open the book to page 274/275 Make a neat copy of the chain reaction diagram on page 274.